


A Series of Almosts

by Empress_of_Trash



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: 5+1 Things, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Gonna Attempt Some Angst Here, M/M, Mutually Unrequited, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, lots of book references
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 02:35:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11591163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Empress_of_Trash/pseuds/Empress_of_Trash
Summary: Their relationship was always almost. Almost something else, almost changing, almost starting.A story of the times something almost happened between Shizuo and Izaya.





	1. Almost Hello

**Author's Note:**

> This is for AlphaTeamQ's writing exchange and the theme is unsurprisingly "almosts". So I figured the saddest thing about Shizaya was the perfect pairing for almost.
> 
> Here's the inspiration:
> 
> "THE SADDEST WORD   
> IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD   
> IS THE WORD ALMOST.
> 
>  
> 
> HE WAS ALMOST IN LOVE.   
> SHE WAS ALMOST GOOD FOR HIM.   
> HE ALMOST STOPPED HER.   
> SHE ALMOST WAITED.  
> HE ALMOST LIVED.   
> THEY ALMOST MADE IT.  
> "
> 
> — Tiny Stories by Nikita Gill
> 
> I decided doing the 5+1 Format as an additional challenge to the theme.

Their first meeting was a mocking clap, a rejection, a sharp knife and sharper smile. The pain had not lingered even though the scar and burning hatred did.

 

It almost wasn’t though.

 

When they saw each other for the first time there was a chance for something else. They both felt a moment of instant recognition when they saw the other. One standing shadowed above the crowd overlooking them all, one in the bright courtyard with a circle of space around him. For one moment they recognized both were isolated the lonely figure in the crowd and above it.

 

A small thought, of _who is that_ , entered both their minds.

 

They both wondered at the other. And while the lonely God asked for information and sought the introduction through a friend, the Monster stumbled upon an almost by accident and instinct.

 

Their relationship was always almost. Almost something else, almost changing, almost starting.

 

This was their first almost. The almost beginning to something else. An introduction without seething rage already boiling over and incendiary smiles. It could have changed everything.

 

. . .

 

Shizuo grumbled under his breath as he made his way towards the back of the school looking for a quiet place to eat. He’d been staying in his classroom, but after the third week of his classmates fleeing when he’d settled in he’d had enough. Empty classrooms were a rejection, but if he left to eat somewhere else it left them without the opportunity to leave him. Still lonely, but better than nothing.

 

He was just turning the corner to the sports fields when he spotted him. Shizuo’s stomach dropped and he went still at the sight. He recognized the boy instantly from his first day. Small, smirking, alone. He hadn’t seen him in any of his classes, but he suspected he was also a first year. He looked to young to be anything else.

 

Shizuo tucked close to the wall as he took the boy in. Raijin Academy was pretty lax in their uniform policy. A lot of students seemed to wear their uniforms or at least parts of them like Shizuo himself, but this boy was, yet again, in street fashion. He still had a look in his eye that Shizuo didn’t like. Too distant from the rest of the world like he was overlooking them from a high perch despite being just as human as the rest. This time though he wasn’t alone.

 

There was a girl with him this time. She was close to him offering a up a small, slightly timid smile and her cheeks were blushing. Probably from the smile the boy was giving her and the way his hand was gently resting on her cheek brushing away what Shizuo guessed where tears. The girl looked far from crying now, kind of breathless and her face was adoring. Adding in the softness in the boy’s smile it made up the perfect cliche scene of a confession behind a high school. Like something out of some manga or love story.

 

A shy girl and her handsome crush, confessions over the bento box held in her hands.

 

A cute story like the kinds Shizuo’s mom watched,

 

Something about the scene just didn’t work with this scenario though and Shizuo felt it deep in his gut that there was something far from innocuous going on here.

 

Slowly he picked apart what was off about the scene.

 

The adoring look was _too_ adoring. The girl didn’t look like she was looking at her crush. She looked like someone who had been drowning and this was the hand pulling her out. Like the boy was the first breath of air after suffocating. It was an eerie religious devotion shining in her eyes.

 

The smile was also somehow _wrong_. It was a benevolent smile, calm expressionless it could mean anything. In this case it seemed to imply affection, sympathy. But it didn’t match with those red, red eyes. The eyes twisted with amusement and predatory joy and it turned that benevolent smile into something sinister. It made it seem like a monster wearing the face of a person.

 

The scene wasn’t a love story, it was a horror story about someone desperate selling their soul to a demon.

 

Shizuo’s hands twitched at the irrational urge to throw something. He felt his insides settle at the feeling of rightness at the thought. That smile was a lie and the boy wearing it a monster. Shizuo, of all people, knew a monster when he saw one.

 

And it was that thought, the knowledge of the like he was seeing that stilled him, made him hesitate. Because if this boy was like him. A monster like himself, maybe he was just as lonely. Maybe he could also need something. Something Shizuo could give him. Maybe he wouldn’t be afraid?

 

Shizuo remembered the lonely isolated figure and began considering how to approach how to talk to the boy. While he thought though something changed in the scene before him. The duo finished their discussion and started walking away.

 

Shizuo felt a quick bolt of fear, as if he was about to lose his opportunity for connection. If he let the boy walk away he’d never get another chance. He almost called out, almost went after him. But the presence of the girl, quiet adoring, by his side stopped him.

 

The other boy may seem lonely but he wasn’t alone.

 

It felt wrong to approach his fellow monster when there was someone else, someone human there to witness it. Later, Shizuo decided, he’d approach the boy later on his own terms.

 

Shizuo turned away slowly, lunch almost forgotten, and mind swimming with possibilities. He felt a faint, quiet hope for connection and kinship.

 

He spent the rest of the week trying to find the boy again.

 

When he finally did, it was with a sharp smile. Instead of a friend he received a scar and a hatred that eclipsed any sort of rage he’d felt before. Because that meeting, it wasn’t just a broken hope it was a betrayal of an almost.

 

Shizuo tried to put it out of his head. The idea he’d ever considered approaching the Flea, the Pest, his _Enemy_ on friendly terms. That he’d ever felt a connection to him was harshly crushed and destroyed, buried deeply far away in his heart. Something that would only flare up in a distant sort of reflection before it was hidden behind each new scar and each new wrong, before the very idea seemed a ridiculous fiction. Like it could never have worked out or be changed.

 

Hatred was the only way their relationship could go. Shizuo steeled himself with this thought and threw himself into their fights refusing any idea that went against it. Because an almost was too painful to consider.


	2. Almost Partings

Their fights, their chases, their bloody games followed them throughout high school. They couldn’t stay away from each other. The gravity of their hatred would always pull one to another. The Monster’s rage leading him by the nose to follow after even when he swore to ignore him the next time, to not let himself be provoked. The God’s curiosity leading him to tickle and prod until he received the roar and chase he wanted.

 

They were like two magnets that would always find each other.

 

They were in each other’s orbits without knowing and more intimate in their dance of death than any of their classmates relationship. Theirs never wavered for three years.

 

So, it was to everyone’s surprise that it was after graduation that it almost broke apart.

 

. . .

 

Izaya was exhausted. 

 

The last few months had been more of a struggle than he would like to admit. Enjoyable, but it had been work. Graduation was something he had been looking forward to. It meant he could finally fully dive into his “career” as an adult and begin expanding it as he’d always planned to. He had kept himself mostly sated with gambling dens, teenage girls, and playing with gangs. Izaya knew he need to build himself up, that no one who was serious in the Underworld would take a fifteen year old, a small one at that seriously.

 

Being eighteen was barely much better, but he had three solid years of building himself up and a tentative connection through Kine to work with. The man had been more of a help than Izaya liked to admit and he found himself grateful to one of his more interesting humans. The man had already stood out when they first meet by somehow managing to calm Shizuo’s rage with his cool demeanor and Izaya had responded in kind too curious to continue needling. Ever since the man had taken an interest in him as well when Izaya started to meet him during his “nights out” and they’d recognized each other. It had taken a few weeks, but the man had started to give quiet suggestions and advice. 

 

The man had turned out to be oddly protective of Izaya, which made the younger man laugh. It was only now after successfully supplying some key information on the Jyan Jyaka Jyan that Kine had finally introduced him to the Awakusu-Kai. It had felt a bit like a graduation gift.

 

Izaya had thrown himself happily into  _ finally  _ being able to fully submerse himself in his work. 

 

His parents had returned to take care of the girls, leaving him to move into his own apartment with the money the Awakusu-Kai had supplied for the information. Without responsibilities he felt so free he’d spent the first night giggling in between arranging his information and trying to pick where to go first.

 

He had so many options, it was almost overwhelming. Like a child who had been told they could have anything they wanted at a candy store he hadn’t been sure which direction to go first. Soon though with Kine and the Awakusu as a starting point he began to find more and more clients. From executives wanting information on their rivals to spouses convinced of infidelities Izaya accepted them all, knowing he needed to get his name out and enjoying the large and small of humanity he was meeting.

 

In between all the information and the fun and challenges he felt his former routine slipping away as he evolved with his new lifestyle. 

 

It took him four months to realize he hadn’t spoken to Shinra since graduation. Another two before a slow dodge sent him back to his friend for some stitches. He grinned the entire time as he found himself catching up with his only friend. Shinra had been making a name for himself as well and even Kine had offhandedly recommended the “new underground doctor” should Izaya every slip up.

 

Izaya spent almost a year gorging himself on his work and revelling in every twist, every surprise, every exquisite human reaction he found. All it led to was a thirst for more and more. 

 

Ten months after graduation though, he had gotten his second, larger apartment, acquired several new phones and aliases, gained a new scar on his abdomen from a knife, and hadn’t slept in three days. His latest “fun” had ended early that morning and he felt quiet, lethargic walking around Ikebukuro. 

 

It was snowing, the cold of the morning and the early hour kept most people in bed. The news reported a snowstorm was coming that was supposed to close down the city if their predictions held. Izaya’s hummed to himself, eyes heavy and mind blank and tired. He hadn’t stopped for months and the cold always made him feel slower more inclined to thoughts than actions. 

 

Winter had been the first time Shizu-chan had ever managed to land a blow on him. Izaya’s hand drifted down to his side, almost, but not quite smiling at the thought. Though the smile looked more like he was baring his teeth no doubt. 

 

He could still remember the chill in the air, a scarf wrapped tightly around his sore throat, and his nose running as he found himself lifted into the air by the sudden unexpected force. He’d had a cold that day, the only reason Shizuo had managed to get the jump on him. It was their second year and he wasn’t sure who had been more stunned when the trash can actually hit its mark, him or the beast. The shock of actually hitting him had given Izaya the chance to retaliate and make a quick retreat. The memory left an unpleasant taste in his mouth and he grimaced.

 

Izaya couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the beast. It was an odd thought. One that sent a jolt through him. It wasn’t that he had forgotten Shizuo in the ten months since they parted ways, it’s just there had been more important things to do than focus on the beast who was finally leaving him be. Honestly, it had been satisfying at first. 

 

He no longer had to worry about his plans being barged into at the worst time. 

 

He no longer had to be constantly alert for an impossible weapon to be thrown at him.

 

He no longer spent his free time running around with a monster lapping at his heels.

 

But he also no longer got to torment said monster. He no longer got to see the glimmer of rage blooming in those golden eyes. See to mask of humanity fall away and reveal the monster for all to see. He no longer felt his blood pumping and his insides burning with each near miss. Feel the utter destructive rage focused on him and solely him. The adrenaline that came with reminding Shizuo what he really was and the moment of sweetness that came each time the beast recognized he couldn’t escape himself was missing.

 

There was a nostalgic pang in Izaya at the thought of those fights, their chases, and his fingers twitched to curl around the blade he rarely had to use anymore. It was for cutting monsters, not his humans.

 

He knew where Shizuo worked. Shinra’s latest chatterings had gone over a lengthy list of failed jobs and the latest attempt was bartending despite being underage.

 

Izaya considered it. He could find Shizuo’s workplace with barely any effort. But his body dragged and his eyes burned reminding him of the true physical exhaustion weighing him down. Izaya needed to sleep if he wanted to face his monster. Despite Kine’s accusations of arrogance and death wishes he did realize that facing Shizuo when not at his best was more than a little foolish.

 

Izaya smiled and turned to head home a goal in mind.

 

. . .

 

Izaya found himself staring. 

 

The bar had been easily located, he’d almost laughed when he had realized it was one of the Awakusu’s. Slipping in had been easy and he’d quickly settled out of sight. The bar was rather elegant for its kind, classy enough to attract a more attractive and higher tipping cliental, but still seedy enough to let in those underage. Quite a few foreigners mixed in with the others. The crowd kept Shizuo occupied enough to give Izaya time to observe him unnoticed.

 

What he saw, made him feel  _ odd _ . 

 

Shizuo had grown yet again during their time apart. Only a few centimeters taller and slightly fuller build despite remaining slender, combined finely in his old fashioned bartender uniform. He had never seen the beast in formal clothing and seeing him so put together was shocking. He looked more like a host than the monster Izaya knew him to be. Even worse he had spent the past thirty minutes smiling shyly and warming up to the foreign girls who were lingering at the bar, or rather the one girl who remained interested. The soft smiles and slowly growing confidence that led to Shizuo winking at her,  _ winking _ , was so at odds with what he knew it left him floundering.

 

Shizuo was not a handsome sweet young man. He was a raging, beast who couldn’t for a moment leave Izaya alone. He’d followed him for three years never letting up and always suspecting him of wrongdoing. He hated Izaya as much as Izaya hated him.

 

Shizuo would never stop hating him more than anyone else. He would never forget Izaya, because that was how they worked. 

 

But apparently Shizuo had forgotten him. Had left him behind. Was putting on a human face and forgetting what a monster he was.

 

Izaya was furious. His hands shook as he lifted the glass and drank the last of the bourbon. 

 

The beast was always meant to be a beast. Always meant to hate him. To do anything else was unthinkable. Unforgivable.

 

Izaya stood up legs shaking slightly and felt for the knife in his pocket. He wanted to scream, to leap at Shizuo and cut off that smile he gave the girl in front of him, to make him rage and to show the world what he really was. To remind all of them and Shizuo himself what he was.

 

But Izaya hesitated. For a moment he hesitated. If he left now Shizuo would be gone from his life. The beast would never interfere with his plans again. He would lose their fights and his satisfaction, but he could accomplish all his goals. All those games he knew, knew deep inside that Shizuo would interfere with. All of those would be fine without the beast there.

 

A smaller part of him whispered that Shizuo had forgotten him. Leaving him alone in his peace and lies angered him, but if he challenged Shizuo, if he approached the beast and was faced with calm. Without his rage and instead indifference. Something small in him balked at that thought made him lean back and look at the exit.

 

And Izaya. He almost left.

 

He took a step towards the exit, drawing in his anger and confusion. The movement shouldn’t have stood out, not with Shizuo so focused on the girl, but he looked up eyes going straight to Izaya. 

 

For a moment they just looked at each other, Izaya standing and Shizuo’s face frozen. Honey eyes met red and the world seemed to fade away. Shizuo‘s face went strangely blank and his eyes burned, body going tense as a spring. The violence didn’t rise though.

 

Izaya held his breath.

 

Then across the room a growl answered.

 

“Izaya-kun.”

 

It ripped across the still air  and Izaya could breath, even as the bar started to go silent. The patrons sensing the change going over it, but not understanding the source.

 

Izaya smiled.

 

“Shizu-chan.”

 

And Shizuo? He roared.


End file.
